The door was ajar. Lena went through.
The folded laundry had been knocked sideways and strewn across the floor. The stool was overturned, the magazines scattered.
“No, no, Archie!”
Eloise’s voice.
A gurgling cry made the hair stand up on Lena’s neck. She ran.
It was close, tight, and dark in the hallway. The walls were spattered with blood. Valetta held a broken bottle, the jagged green edges clotted with tissue. Blood oozed over the Coca-Cola trademark and coated his fingers bright red.
Eloise had one hand clamped over her eyes. She was jammed against the wall, shirt torn open, hair every which way, lips split and puffed. Black blood ran between her fingers. In her other hand she clutched the phone receiver, the broken cord trailing over her shoulder. Eloise’s mouth was open, but she made no sound. She slid down the wall and crumpled to the floor.
Charlie stood in the bedroom doorway, belly pouched forward, finger in his mouth. A paralytic stillness had settled over him; a child turned to stone.
Archie Valetta moved toward Lena, wary but unafraid. He was muscular—a prison weight lifter. An inverted silver cross hung from his right ear. He looked at the bat and smiled.
Probably figures I don’t have the nerve, Lena thought.
She swung the bat sideways and cracked it solidly against the side of Valetta’s left knee. He roared and fell backward. She swung the bat up over his head.
Valetta rolled. He snatched Charlie’s legs, knocking the child to the floor. Charlie sobbed, scooted sideways, and curled into a ball.
Lena reached for him.
Valetta was there ahead of her, gathering the child close, tucking the small head under his chin. Static electricity mingled Charlie’s fine blond hair with Valetta’s coarse red beard.
The stink of sweat was thick.
“Back off, bitch.” Valetta squeezed and Charlie whimpered softly. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, Wonder Woman, but if you give a shit about this kid, you better back off now.”
Sweat rolled down Valetta’s temples, and his breath came in great heaving gulps.
“Put the kid down,” Lena said. “Do it now.” She arced the bat toward his knee.
Valetta put a huge hand on Charlie’s throat, covering the small neck from sternum to chin.
“Just a squeeze, little girl. That’s all it’ll take.”
A wet stain spread across the front of Charlie’s blue cotton shorts, and urine ran in a trickle down his leg. The little body sagged in Valetta’s arms, as if the child could take anything but that final shame.
And Valetta was on his feet, moving sideways, crablike.
“Don’t call the cops, bitch. I see a cop and I’ll throw the kid off the bike.”
Lena was still holding the bat when Mendez came. He was there, as always, in time to pick up the pieces. Lena saw him take everything in; the laundry, so carefully washed and folded, now strewn across the couch and the floor; the empty pizza box, crumpled on the side where it had been trampled; the torn coloring book.
He almost came to her, then held back. Perceptive, she thought. In her mind she saw her sister in the driveway.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think.
Lena bounced the bat on the carpet. Mendez went into the kitchen. Eloise had been starting another cake when Archie had arrived. There were blood splats on the kitchen floor. Lena had seen them when she went to call for help, forgetting, in her panic, that the phone had been ripped from the wall. A bowl full of batter had overturned and dripped down the side of the cabinet, drying like beige enamel. One of the kitchen chairs lay on its side. Someone had set the pieces of the telephone neatly on the chipped Formica table. GenTel was going to be pissed.
Lena saw Mendez pass from the kitchen to the hallway.
Eloise had lost a lot of blood. The thick oval stain would be drying to a brown crust on the fringes of the worn shag carpet.
Lena shifted her weight, back aching, uncomfortable on the stool where Eloise Valetta had faced her this afternoon. She heard the bedroom door open. One of the uniforms frowned when she got up, but didn’t say anything. The lab techs were in the hallway, so she could only stare down the tunnel of darkness at Mendez’s back. He stood in the bedroom doorway, then turned and faced her.
“Too late again,” Lena said. And saw, from the look in his eyes, that she’d scored a hit.
13
Lena’s hands were trembling. Patrolman Geer leaned close and showed her how to buckle the seat belt as if it were a new form of technology. Lena fumbled it twice before the latch snapped home.
A woman’s voice, wrapped in static, crackled from the radio. Something to somebody—call dispatch.
Lena felt strange in the police car. Strange, cold, important.
They had driven her crazy, asking how she felt—the ambulance crew, Mendez, even the woman from next door. Ms. Kilmer in 1B, kind but ridiculous in pink bicycle shorts and a black tube top. She had come immediately at Lena’s knock, and had called for help while Lena tried to staunch Eloise’s bleeding.
Lena looked at her hands. Clean now; she’d washed them. But there were dark brown stains on her Royal Robbins hiking shirt, on the front of her blue jeans, and on the tops of her shoes.
“He gouged her eye out,” Lena said.
The patrolman glanced at her once, and kept driving.
“Mendez will get him,” he said. “You be sure of that.”
The radio crackled again.
“Getting busy out tonight,” Geer said. “Usually not like this till the weekends. Gets going around eleven, then tapers down around three A.M. Nobody seems to sleep these days.”
White swirls of fog drifted across the headlights.
“Foggy,” Geer said.
Lena sat forward, trying to see the road ahead.
“Where I used to live, in Virginia, it would get foggy sometimes in the morning? We’d have forty-or sixty-car pileups on the interstate.” He shook his head. “People are funny. Some slow way down, and others speed up, and nobody can see a thing.”
“Which is it you do?”
A stoplight burned red through the haze and Geer eased the car to a stop. A Cadillac with dark-tinted windows and throbbing speakers paused, then went left, trailing irritation into the night.
Lena leaned her head against the side window, feeling cool glass on her right cheek.
“What I do is pull off,” Geer said. The light turned green, and he eased the cruiser forward.
Lena glanced at his face, young and tired in the glow from the dash.
“You carry a baseball bat everwhere you go?” Geer asked.
Lena pushed hair out of her eyes. “In the trunk of my car. And one under the bed.”
“Gun be easier,” Geer said.
“We were afraid to have guns,” Lena said softly. “With Kevin in the house.”
The patrol car cruised the familiar territory of her neighborhood. It was odd to find her street looking just the same. Her house was dark.
“Kevin your son?”
“Nephew.”
“I got a niece in Wilmington.”
“No, don’t,” Lena said, when Geer opened his door. “Just drop me right here. And thanks.”
“Sure you’re okay?”
She’d been dying to tell someone how okay she was. That it felt pretty good, swinging that bat. Strong. Controlled. Scared shitless.
“I’m fine,” she said, and slammed the door shut.
Officer Geer kept his cruiser poised at the curb, engine idling, while she walked through the grass to the porch. The illumination from the headlights gave her just enough light.
Lena held her right wrist steady with her left hand, so she could fit the key in the lock. Four tries and she got it. Geer didn’t leave till she shut the door and locked it.
Lena took a deep breath. Her mind flashed a vision of Charlie, eyes dull, glazed with shock. Mendez would have to find him. If anybody could, it would be M
endez.
Mendez, Mendez, Mendez.
Her impulse was to get in the Cutlass and go looking. Do something. But the Cutlass was out of gas on Birken Street, and her knees felt like jelly. She leaned against the doorjamb and closed her eyes.
She was aware of the faintest trace of sweetness in the air. Men’s cologne—something or other by Calvin Klein. She smelled it every time she went into Glenden’s Department Store, and she had smelled it on Mendez, up close.
Mendez would find Charlie. She would find Charlie.
Lena went to the kitchen for the last of the Clos DuBois. She got a glass from the top shelf of the cabinet and tucked the wine bottle between her ribs and her elbow. She would curl up on the couch and drink it all.
The living room was dark and still, oddly tense in the dimness. The smell of cologne was stronger. The light from the kitchen showed an empty room, but Lena stopped, then took one step backward.
A dark head rose from behind the couch. Even in the dark, she knew him. Lena dropped the bottle of wine.
“Surprise.”
The wineglass broke between Lena’s fingers, and her hands grew wet with blood. Hayes switched on the three-way lamp—snap-snap-snap to the highest brilliance, then snap-snap back to a dim yellow glow.
He wore a new suit, expensive, deep gray. His hair looked soft, dark, and full, and his eyes were blue, cold, and still.
He took a black silk handkerchief from his left breast pocket, and stepped close to take hold of her hands. His skin was sallow, unhealthy. Lena jerked her hands away.
“Get the hell out of my house.”
The stem of the wineglass fell to the floor. The handkerchief fluttered behind it.
Hayes smiled. “Don’t be afraid, Lena.” He picked up the soiled handkerchief, tucked it into his pocket, and settled on the edge of the rocking chair. “I’m just here to talk.”
He held up a finger, stained with her blood, and slowly licked it clean.
Lena sat on the edge of the couch, close to the phone. There were slivers of glass in her fingers and palms. Tiny ones. Big ones. They hurt.
Blood dripped down her wrists to her lap. Hayes watched the red trickle with something like rapture in his eyes. Lena wondered if he’d looked at Whitney that way, when she’d died by his hand in the driveway.
He rocked gently in the rocking chair. Lena found herself riveted by the familiar slow rhythm—the comforting creak of old wood, and the memory of Whitney and Kevin, right before bed.
She pulled a shard of glass from the palm of her hand and held it between slick red fingers.
“Hope you haven’t spent all that life insurance money, Lena. Got it locked up tight in the bank? I like to think that you know it’s not yours. So you won’t mind me taking it back.”
Lena looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “Seed money. You and Archie are looking for seed money.”
The smile he gave her was almost sheepish. He spread his hands wide.
“I took out those policies, Lena. On my wife and my child. I paid the premiums. I was beneficiary.”
“You can’t collect for a killing.”
“It should at least have gone to my family. Not your bunch, not you Padgets.”
“We let the courts decide, Hayes.”
“The courts were wrong.”
“It happens. They let you out.”
Hayes smiled. “How would you like me to go away, and you never see me again? Give me the insurance money, and I’m out of your life.”
“Tired of selling cars already?”
He smiled, just a little, and rocked back and forth. His mind seemed elsewhere. “Maybe I don’t want that money, anyhow. I like it here, with you. Like old times. Old, old times.” Hayes kept smiling. “How you getting along with Eloise? I told Archie the two of you had your heads together. I hope Eloise is smart, and gives him what he wants.”
Lena winced, remembering Charlie. “She doesn’t have it.”
Hayes raised his left eyebrow.
“She doesn’t.”
“Archie won’t be happy.”
“Listen, Jeff. You get me Charlie back—”
“Charlie?”
“Eloise’s little boy.”
“Didn’t know she had one.”
“Yes, you did. Archie took him tonight.”
“Definitely not part of his plan, I don’t think.”
“Get me Charlie back from Valetta. And I mean unhurt and in one piece. Then you can have the money. Everything from Whitney and Kevin’s insurance policies. Ninety thousand dollars.”
“One hundred and fifty. Thousand.”
“Legal fees, Jeff.” Lena smiled sadly. “Funeral expenses.”
“Yes, you did a nice job there, but you got soaked.” He stopped rocking and cocked his head sideways. “Why do you care about getting the kid back?”
“Why do you care why I care?”
The doorbell rang. It rang again. Lena stood up.
“Just let whoever it is go away,” Hayes said.
The doorbell rang again. Twice.
“I’ll get rid of them.” Lena waited for Hayes to object, but he stayed in the chair, rocking.
Lena undid the locks and flung the door hard, smacking it into the wall. Mendez stood, frowning, on her porch. He saw the blood on her hands.
“He’s in the living room!”
She turned, shoes skidding on the plank floor, Mendez running past her.
The rocking chair was empty. The sliding glass door was open, and a breeze rattled the wooden miniblinds. The wind chimes rang, like tiny silver bells.
14
“You’re not going to catch him.”
“Let go.”
“Lena. Come on. Back in. He’s—”
“You don’t believe he was here, do you?”
“I believe he was here.” Mendez led her back through the living room and up the stairs.
“He’s not up there.”
“No, but your bathroom is. Just a minute, I’ll be right back.”
Lena glanced around the bathroom, wishing she’d put up the shampoo, the wet washrag, and particularly the red lace bra that hung on the towel bar. She followed Mendez’s progress by listening to his footsteps—going down the stairs, into the kitchen, then back up the stairs again. He came back to the bathroom with a green ceramic bowl.
“I make meatloaf in that,” Lena said.
He filled the bowl with warm soapy water. “Soak your hands in there. You have any gauze, bandages … first-aid stuff?”
“Medicine cabinet. Yank hard, it’s kind of rusted shut.”
He pulled once, then again, harder.
“Mendez?”
“Hmmm?”
“Would you mind just—”
He sighed. “This is it?”
“What’d you expect, General Hospital?”
“Every home should have … at least more than a dried-up bottle of peroxide and two crumpled Band-Aids. Dinosaur Band-Aids. Never mind. I have a first-aid kit in my car.”
“I just bet you do.”
His voice floated back from the stairs. “Plain bandages, though. Mine don’t have little dinosaurs on them.”
“Hey!” she yelled. “Beth got those on sale!”
The front door slammed, then a car door opened and closed. The water in the bowl was turning pink. Lena’s hands throbbed. She leaned her head against the wall.
Mendez came through the door with a blanket tucked under one arm, a white plastic case, and a disconcerting air of purpose. He set the case on the bathroom counter, scooting three brands of skin lotion and a Lowila cleansing bar up against the wall. One of the bottles of lotion wobbled, fell off the counter, and landed in the overflowing trash can. Mendez leaned down to pick it up.
“Don’t bother.”
“No? Going to grow old gracefully?”
“Be still my heart, you made a joke.”
He tucked the blanket around her shoulders. She rubbed her cheek against it.
“Scrat
chy,” she said.
“Wool.”
“Cotton is softer.”
“Wool is warmer.”
“You better take it off me, for real, Mendez. I might get blood on it.”
He took off his sport coat and hung it on a brass hook on the back of the bathroom door.
“Won’t be the first time.”
Lena eyed the blanket and pushed it away from her face. Mendez unfastened his cuff links, set them on the back of the toilet, and rolled up his sleeves.
“You’re starting to make me nervous,” Lena said.
He selected a needle out of the white plastic box, and doused it with alcohol.
“What’s that for? I’ve got tweezers somewhere.”
He smiled at her. “Only take you a week to find them.”
“I think they’re with my makeup stuff.”
“I have tweezers. I like a needle better. My wife used to go barefoot all the time. I dug out a lot of splinters.”
He sat on the side of the tub, his knees touching hers. He took a red towel off the rack and folded it on his lap. He patted the towel.
Lena laid her hands down on the ridged terrycloth.
“Ow.”
“I haven’t touched you yet.”
She peered down at her hands. “Think I need stitches?”
“No. Lena?”
“Hmmm?”
“You’re in my light. Sit back now. Relax.”
“Why do people always say that?”
She sat back and let her head rest against the wall. Her shoulder knocked the top of the toilet tank and the cuff links fell to the floor.
“Damn.”
“I’ll get them later. Be still.”
“How bad was Eloise, Mendez? Did you hear anything from the hospital?”
“She’s still in shock. He hurt her, Lena, but she’ll live. Somebody’s there now, waiting to talk to her.”
“He stuck that bottle, that broken bottle, into her eye. Doesn’t that get to you?”
“Would it depress you to know I’ve seen worse?”
“I can’t stand it, thinking about—ouch, oh, stop a minute, Mendez.”
“Be still. Okay. I got it.”
“Thinking about Charlie. He’s such a sweet boy, he shouldn’t be in the middle of all this.”
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